


IN MEMORIAM. 



Amd &hlt Sal|lg0gti» 



THE MIDNIGHT OF WEDNESDAY, 
-^tfAY 2d, 1864. 




A SEKMON 



IN MEMORY OF 



COLONEL ULRIC DAHLaREN, 

DELIVERED JN THE 

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 

"WASHINGTON, D. C, 

S^BBJ^TH: E"^rE3^IIsrC3-, .A.:PI^XXi 24, 1864, 

BY THE PASTOR, 

REV. E. SUNDERLAND, D. D. 



^he ^rave rn,Xbst he Iiemembered. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. : 

M c G I L L & W I T II E R W, PRINTERS AND S T E R E T Y P E R S. 

1864. 



--7t 



Washington, D. C, ^Ij^m-i^ 25, 1864. 
Key. Byron Sunderland, D. D. 

Dear Sir : We respectfully request that you will furnish for publica- 
tion a copy of the eloquent and patriotic discourse on the life and death of 
Colonel Dahlgren, delivered last evening. We wish to see the noble 
daring and heroic devotion to the cause of his country, which characterized 
the brief but brilliant career of this young soldier, held up before the 
youth of our country that they may be stimulated to an honorable emula- 
tion of his virtues and, if need be, to a similar sacrifice of their lives. We 
wish to honor his memory, by publishing the story of his deeds and his 
death, that it may go down to posterity with the record of many other 
noble young men of our land, whose lives have honored and whose deaths 
have rendered doubly sacred the cause in which they fell, and will add to 
the reproach and shame of all our enemies and all who sympathize with 
them. 

In thus presenting this request, we believe that v/e express the general 
sentiment of those who listened to your discourse, and the loyal people of 
this community. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servants, 

SCHUYLER COLFAX, 
J. K. MOEEHEAD, 
D. MOEEIS, 
Z. D. GILMAN, 
WM. H. CAMPBELL, 
WM. GUNTON, 
O. C. WIGHT, 
MAESHALL CONANT. 



WAsniNOTON, A2}ril 2G, 18G1. 
To Messrs. Schuyler Colfax, 

J. Iv. MOREHEAD, D. MORRIS, AND OTHERS. 

Gentlemen : Your request of the 25th instant, so kindly expressed, is 
duly received, and' in submitting to your disposal a copy of the discourse 
delivered by me, in memory "f the lute Colonel Dahlgren, permit me to 



add, that when our countrymen sliall retul the story of this noble young 
soldier, and the nation's heart shall thrill again on every recollection of 
his exploits, I pray them to remember it is not upon the ground of his 
lofty patriotism, but upon the humble hope of his confidence in the 
Redeemer of the world, that his Pastor cherishes the conviction of his 
now beatified and exalted estate, in the presence of God and the h ily 
angels. 

Ever truly, &c., 

B. SUNDERLAND. 



, , Identification of the Ijody op the 

Late Colonel Ulfjc Daulgben.— By request 
; oi Admiral Dahlgrea, Mr. Samuel Kirby, an un- 
dertaker, ou Thursday examined the body at 
the Congressional Cemetery, which had been 
buried there about two months since, and fully 
identified it as the body of the late gallant 
Colonel riric Dahlgren, son of the Admiral. 



SERMON. 



2 Sam., 3: 34. "Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into 
fetters— as a man falleth before wicked men, so fellest thou. And all 
the people wept again over him ! " 

A brave man liad fallen by assassination. He had not died as 
a felon or a coward. No earthly power could bind his hands or 
put his feet in fetters. None had ever been able to take him cap- 
tive, or confine him in chains and prisons. He was swift as the 
roe of the mountain, with an eagle's eye, lion-hearted, strong in 
battle. His valorous deeds had made his name a household word 
in the nation. In an unsuspecting moment, he was ensnared. 
Jealousy, fear, rage and revenge — the base quaternion of passion 
under the guise of hypocrisy, set upon him and smote him down. 
Such a death went home to the heart of the people; at every 
thought of it they bewailed him aloud. The king with lamenta- 
tion pronounced this eulogy over " a prince and a great man 
fallen that day in Israel." 

Time, ever fertile of humanity, rarely produces such heroes. 
To-day it is given us to behold not only one of the latest, but also 
one of the loftiest examples. As they did of old, we look upon it 
through blinding tears, but tears whose thick and grievous mist 
can never obscure its brightness. We see it through a storm of 
such mingled emotions as seldom sweeps the throbbing chords of 
human nature, or stirs the soul of a great people at once with pain 
and pride, sadness and scorn, anguish and indignation. We may 



6 

<iazo on till tliu heart is well-uigli burstiug, fur long may it be 
before tlic like of it shall rise again ! 

It is the memory of a young man who did not reach the end of 
the first year of his majorit)/ that we now recall. The Sabbath 
morning, April 3d, in 1842, beheld his birth. It was amid a scene 
of domestic happiness, in a rural home, in a lovely spot near 
Philadelphia, by the crystal Neshamony, in Bucks County, Penn- 
sylvania. The midnight of Wednesday, March 2d, in 186-1, saw 
him mangled and bloody, expiring on the damp sod, surrounded 
by a cowardly, brutal, demon ized foe, springing from their ambush 
to plunder and mutilate him, there, in the fatal thicket by the 
turbid Mattapony, in King and <jueen's County, A'^irginia. How 
tranquilly fair his advent upon the stage of life — how bitterly 
tragic his exit ! Now as we look back over his single score of 
years, prophetic signals start all around him, proclaiming his ca- 
reer, and pointing him out as one anointed of God to teach a 
lesson to Americans and to all mankind that can never be forgot- 
ten. Alas ! we did not know this, neither could we interpret it, till 
he himself flashed it upon the nation, in one glowing spectacle, 
unfolding all. 

His very name was a presage of his character, derived as it is 
from the mighty Alaric, king of the Visigoths, and conijucror of 
Rome. His paternal ancestry streteliing back through a long, 
honorable and cultured lineage of Sweden, gave to him a noble 
blood and high exanjples of the virtues which he revered and 
emulated as a true and ftivored son of that great Scandinavian 
race, which has so long stamped its resistless impress on the his- 
toric fortunes of Europe. His maternal parentage springing from 
a family of beautiful and accomplished women, endowed him with 
whatever is delicate and refined, gentle and endearing, trustful 
and true in the highest attributes of manhood. His baptism in 
infancy at the hands of a Calvinistic Presbyter and Pastor, made 
him a child of the Covenant, and was the fitting symbol of that 



old Puritan spirit which has fought so many battles for the su- 
premacy of God and the liberty of men in the earth, and which, 
as we now sec, animating him, has added in his name but another 
glory to its imperishable scroll. His education in the family, the 
academy, and the church, were alike felicitous in their influence. 
His training, bodily and mentally, in the more practical and active 
spheres of social and professional life, though continuing through 
a brief period, and this rather in the preparatory stages, notwith- 
standing contributed with no less effect to mould him for the part 
he has acted, and for the record which he has made immortal. 

We shall mark the proof of this more definitely as we trace his 
course from the beginning, and observe his approaches to an early 
and enviable renown. His first years were spent in the parish of 
Hartsville, the place of his nativity, and in the city of Wilming- 
ton, in the State of Delaware. His father, then a Lieutenant in 
the Navy of the United States, was called from his retreat at 
Hartsville to embark for a cruise in the since ill-fated Cumber- 
land, and the family fixed their residence in Wilmington, where 
wife and children awaited his return. Here, for a period of two 
or three years, the child-hero, with his little brothers and sisters, 
received the priceless tutelage of a Christian and now sainted 
mother, amid the charming and glorious scenes of nature, adorned 
with the art and elegance of man, which have rendered that re- 
gion so attractive. Under such a mentor, and with such sur- 
roundings, God was filling that infant mind with inspiration 
against the time of need. His father, returning in the November 
of 1845, awaited the pleasure of his Government, once more sur- 
rounded by his household. Two years and more thus passed 
away, when again, in the January of 1847, he was ordered to 
ordnance duty in Washington, where, in the month of May of 
1848, he established his present residence almost under the eaves 
of the sanctuary, and gathered his family about him, one of whom 
soon after became a member of this church, and all of whom hfve 



since worshipped, almost wholly with this congrcgatioa, the God 
of our fathers. 

We have seen by what providence the home of the lad had 
been fixed in Washington. The new scenes and events now 
transpiring around him began to awaken an interest seldom felt 
in a soul so young. The Capital presented a thousand views that 
told upon his character. Domestic, scholastic, and Christian in- 
fluences were steadily developing and moulding the elements of 
his nature. In addition to these, he was constantly moving in 
the High Place of the land, and daily breathing that air of }le- 
iropolitan society which, however tainted to the multitude, still 
bears to an earnest and upright mind the greatness and glory of 
a nation's life, filling it with the seeds of a pure patriotism and 
an exalted faith. Always carefully nurtured and trained at home, 
he was, from the age of six till he left the city in his seventeeJith 
year, an exemplary and constant attendant in this church, upon 
the instructions of the Sabbath School and the public services of 
Divine Worship. Here he learned those lessons of God and the 
great salvation, of Christ and the Atonement, of the blood of re- 
mission and justification by faith, of repentance and the forgive- 
ness of sin, of the Holy Ghost and the regeneration of the human 
heart, of obedience and the acceptance of the Gospel, of Death, 
Resurrection and Immortality, which can never be impressed upon 
the soul without stirring it to the profoundest sense, as well of 
the duties and responsibilities, as of the sublimities and grandeurs 
of existence, and which we fain conceive he would have been led 
in time openly to acknowledge among the children of God, 
through the sealing ordinances of His House. Here, too, in the 
sacred Analects he saw alike the wonder and the mystery of Prov- 
idence, saw the theater of life thrown open, saw the persons 
issuing upon the stage, saw the scheme of human fortune being 
disclosed, saw the destiny of men and kingdoms rising and fiill- 
ing, and how amid the marvel and change of the shifting scenes. 



9 

it swept upou its course, bearing to vice its final punishment and 
to virtue its everlasting reward. And amid the confusion and 
uproar of mighty convulsions, he saw the procession of patriarchs 
and prophets, apostles, martyrs and heroes, the worthies of every 
age and of every name, holding on their triumphal way with 
songs, and counting not their lives dear unto them for the testi- 
mony of the faith once delivered to the saints. And as he saw 
all this and felt its powerful action upon his mind and heart, his 
whole being, though usually pensive and sedate, glowed as with 
the flame of some grander revelation, and such germs were lodged 
in a congenial soil, as have since, through him, put forth their 
greatest fruit. 

But while the culture of his moral faculties was maintained, 
his intellectual powers were no less assiduously advanced in a 
primary and academic course. His first experience as a pupil was 
in the private but excellent school of the Misses Koones, where 
he acquired those rudiments of knowledge which lay the founda- 
tion for a higher education in the natural sciences, mathematics, 
and the classics. In the year 1850, being the ninth of his age, 
he entered the Rittenhouse Academy of Washington — an insti- 
tution for the instruction of boys, of long established reputation 
for its high moral tone and thorough intellectual training — for 
many years under the superintendence of Mr. Otis C. Wight, its 
present capable, efiicient, and honored Principal. Here he con- 
tinued with no material intcrruptiou for a period of eight years, 
going through in this time the prescribed curriculum of learning 
and pushing his advances far beyond most of his associates into 
several of the departments of Collegiate study. The testimony of 
his Preceptor is as natural as it is faithful, a heart-felt tribute to 
the memory of one whose connection with the Academy can only 
add a luster to its name. Involved in the common grief by the 
death of so noble an alumnus, he reports of him generously but 
2 



10 

tersely, that '' he was a good boy, an excellent scholar, highly 
esteemed by his teachers and schoolmates, prompt to every duty, 
earnest and self-reliant, making attainments rarely reached in an 
academic course, and exciting high expectations of future success." 
The traits of character which have recently burst forth like a 
halo in his conduct were thus gaining depth and distinctness 
during this passage of his school-boy days. Nothing mean or 
narrow, nothing contentious or insubordinate in his relation with 
his companions and instructors marred the growing strength and 
beauty of his life. Sportive yet studious, affable yet spirited, 
kind yet resolute, thoughtful at times even to sadness yet singu- 
larly intrepid, he scorned an unworthy motive, disdained the com- 
pany of the vicious, and held himself entirely aloof from those 
frivolous habits of school-time annoyances to which so many 
youths are unfortunately addicted. He set a striking example of 
respect for order, submission to law, and fidelity to the claims of 
duty. As he grew older among his fellows, he became at length 
the favorite and confidant of them all. To him, as by one consent, 
they deferred the trusts and honors with which school-boy life — 
the miniature of after life — is charged. And he, faithful and 
modest in all, wore on his way towards the hour of his graduation. 
Meantime he was in full communion with his books. He conned 
the lore of physical science, and saw outspread before him the 
geography of the world and the manifold wonders of its varied 
elements and living tribes. He diligently threaded the mazes of 
history, and poured over the annals of the past to find that he 
belonged to a country and a people than whom no other have 
ever had a more stupendous and glorious mission to accomplish. 
He strengthened his reason by grappling with the deep problems 
of the mathematics, discovering with delight those great princi- 
ples of exact and philosophical science which resolve to the mind 
of man the mighty mechanism and measure of the Universe. He 
plumed his imagination from those eagles of eloquence and song 



11 

which the spirit of oratory and poetry has brooded into life. To 
proficiency in his own mother-tongue, he added a substantial 
acquaintance with the Latin language, perusing rather with the 
fervor of the enthusiast than the stolid perseverance of the pupil, 
the elegant chapters of Tacitus, the flowing cantos of Virgil, 
the classic commentaries of Ca3sar, and the splendid orations of 
Cicero. And so he drank at the Pierian spring, and was in- 
vigorated and armed for the great sequel of his life. So he 
came at last with a fair record and a solid scholarship to the 
day of adieu to his ahna mater. It was the 17th of De- 
cember, a wintry day in 1858, that he bade farewell to his 
friends in the Academy, and never did there go forth from its 
walls a truer heart or a nobler genius than when his shadow 
faded from the threshold. 

Two years and more prior, as well as subsequent, to his leaving 
school, gave him comparative recreation from in-door study, while a 
physical training in more active and varied engagements added 
to his manly form a skilled and athletic vigor. In his intervals 
of leisure he was often at the Navy-yard, where both on land and 
water his exuberant spirits found healthy and profitable exercise. 
In the November of 1857, his father was coming up the Potomac 
in the Plymouth, on his return from England, and the lad, eager to 
be the first to salute him, persuaded some old ordnance men of the 
Yard to go out with him in a boat, and they pulled down the 
river to Alexandria, where getting a tow from a schooner, he 
come alongside the Plymouth opposite Mount Vernon. So, in 
the following year, when his father was leaving in the same 
vessel for the West Indies, the boy, desirous of being the last to 
part with him, went out with the Plymouth till clear of the 
Branch, where waving his last adieu from the skiffs, he pulled 
back with the ordnance messenger to the Yard, in a glow of youth- 
ful ardor. 

In the January of 1859, he visited his relatives in the South 



12 

and spent some time in the occupation of civil engineering in Lou- 
isiana and Mississippi, having the base of operation at Natchez 
where his uncle resided. It was here that the Mighty Disposer, 
who prepares all things beforehand, had opened to him the ma- 
jestic seminary of Nature and made the tangled forest and the 
flowering plains of a region full of the great thoughts of God, in 
the profusion of their beauty and grandeur, to yield him a senti- 
ment and experience that afterward often stood him in stead, in 
the exhausting ride, or in the dauntless charge. Here his sinews 
were toughened to an almost incredible endurance of physical 
hardship and fatigue, while his taste for the sturdy sports of the 
field, and liis love of the art equestrian were fully gratified. So 
splendidly did he sit his horse in the wildest and most perilous 
passages, that he might almost he said to .-suggest the reality 
of the fabled Centaurs of Thessaly. Little did he then think to 
what use those acquirements should come, and little did his 
friends foresee, in that Southern episode of his career, the de- 
signs of that brilliant life-plan which Providence has since re- 
vealed. 

Meanwhile there was one other instructor that gave to his charac- 
ter the finishing touches of its tenderness and gravity. Affliction 
opens, indeed, a sad school for the human spirit and often we dearly 
pay for the tuition of sorrow — but out of it, if sanctified, man takes 
the golden attributes of his being. In the domestic bereavements 
of the family, cutting down as they did none more fair or lovely, 
the young lad exhibited a measure of mingled afi"eetion and 
soberness amounting to positive precocity. In 1844, death 
smote his brother John; in 1851, his brother Lawrence; in 
1858, his sister Lizzie, whom we remember in the radiant 
beauty and loveliness of her seventeen summers. To her he 
Avas most fondly attached, and her death made a lasting im- 
pression on his mind. But the great shadow that fell upon 
the household deeper than all, till this deeper shadow that now 



13 

lies upon them, was tlic death of his angelic mother ou the Gth 
of June in 1855. What a light was thus quenched upon that 
altar ! What a withering stroke fell upon the hearts of the deso- 
late ! In the sanctity of that private grief sat the petrified hus- 
band and his sobbing family. By the beautiful but silent form 
that awaited a fitting sepulture, they lingered from morning till 
night and from nigli^ till morning. Yet among them all there 
was none that held his place so sadly resolute, in a frame so calm 
towards the living, so reverent toward the dead, as this same word- 
less boy that choked down the rising tumult of his memories, and 
by some strange power of speechless fascination upheld the broken- 
hearted and kept the weeping in countenance. No eapi'ice of 
childhood, no weariness of the body, no slumber of the eyelids 
could drive him for one moment from the duties of filial piety. 
Yet, what must have been the process going on down deep in that 
young huiuan heart, as he saw one after another of his fondest loves 
removed away, and trod the noiseless chambers Avhere their voices 
should be heard no more ? Oh, then did he not begin to divine that 
Time itself is but a pilgrimage and Life but a battle, and man's 
home and heritage are in Heaven ; that when our journey is ended 
and our work accomplished here, it is then only that we shall enter 
into everlasting felicity, then only that we shall regain the happy 
throng of sainted kindred and the glorious company of martyrs 
round about the Throne ! Thus purified in the furnace, his 
aims were exalted and unified. Of all the qualities that dis- 
closed themselves in him the most commanding and conspicaous 
was purity and directness of purpose, that unselfish and unques- 
tioning devotion to a great truth which stands in the divine 
philosophy of Jesus — "if thine eye be evil thy whole body shall 
be full of darkness, but if thine eye be single thy whole body 
shall be full of liaht !" Such a testimony did he leave in after 
days when he came to endure the personal suffering that fell upon 
himself, and such a proof did he give of one absorbing end, so 



14 

well contained in the counsel of the great but fallen Wolsey to 
his last friend : 

" Be just and fear not ; 
Let all the ends thou aim'st at he thy country's, 
Thy God's, and truth's ! Then, if thoufallcst, 0, Cromwell ! 
Thou fallest a hlessed martyr ! " 

To show the part which one has played in a great drama we 
should of right consider the history of its times. Yet, we may not 
now dwell on the progress of the fearful and unesampled events 
which issued in the present struggle of the country. It must suffice 
to say that while the nation was drifting towards inevitable war, this 
young man, now approaching the close of his minority, had re- 
turned from the South, and we find him settled in Philadelphia, 
in the month of September of 1860, having finally determined 
on the study of the law in the office of James W. Paul, Esq., 
one of his uncles by affinity of marriage. Here, for a time, he 
gave himself to the mastery of the great principles of juridical 
learning which it is the care of that noble Profession to illustrate 
and maintain, and without which society can have no security, 
order no defense, and civilization no progress. In the pursuits 
of such a science, he acquired a new knowledge of the funda- 
mental doctrines of individual and public welfare; he derived a 
new sense of the value to mankind of the institutions of free 
Governnieut ; he was filled witli a stronger conviction of the im- 
portance of preserving the Kepublic in its purity and integrity, 
while he drew as it were from the fountains of Sacred, Roman, 
Enolish and American jurisprudence, a fresh inspiration of the 
proud fealty of patriotism and a soul-thrilling allegiance to all 
rightful authority. But the occurrences that followed in swift 
succession, throwing the whole country into the fiercest tempest of 
excitement, could not fail to affect the neophyte of justice then 
preparing to defend by his eloquence, what a Higher Power in- 
tended should be henceforth maintained by the sword. The 



15 

argument was closed — the diseiissiou concluded. The light of 
half a century had been shining on the question and now all that 
remained was an appeal to aims. And as the eye of the 
young loyalist looked out upon his country's quarrel and his ear 
heard from afar the shouting of captains and the thunder of bat- 
tle, the Pandects of the great lawgivers trembled in his hands. 
From the September of 1860 to the April of 1862, an ardent soul 
was wavering betwen the forum and the field. It was evident 
that the ponderous tomes of legal philosophy had lost their hold 
upon his attention. lie began to feel that another vocation 
awaited him, and already heard in his inmost heart the secret sum- 
mons to its solemn mission. Throughout this interval he appeared 
restle.ss and ill at ease. His fervid nature awoke in all its energy. 
He became a Lieutenant in a company of Home Guards in Phila- 
delphia, styled the '' Dahlgren Howitzer Battery." Between that 
city and the Capital he moved to and fro as one seeking to find his 
place. Like the ruddy stripling in the valley of Elah, he seemed 
too youthful to be recognized among bearded men in the confu- 
sion and heat of the first great popular uprising. Now he was 
here, and now he was there; coming to his father and returning 
to his uncle. In April, 1861, at Philadelphia ; in May at the Cap- 
ital and Fort Washington, and back again to his law-office in 
Philadelphia ; in July again in Washington, proceeding to For- 
tress Monroe and back again to the Capital. After the first 
defeat at Bull Bun, going by mere sufferance with Parker to the 
defense of our lines near Alexandria, where, by way of experi- 
ment, he first trained a battery upon the enemy. In September, 
with Parker's battery at Fort Dahlgren ; then in the Navy-yard 
on the visit of Prince Napoleon, and back again to the law in 
Philadelphia. In April, 1862, again in Washington ; going with 
the President and his father to Aquia ; returning to Philadel- 
phia, and back again to Washington. At last his decision 
was taken, and on the 26th of that mouth he gave up the law and 



16 

joined the Ordnance Department at the Washington Navy-yard 
under his father, there commanding. 

Thus, he drew nigh to the work which Providence had assigned 
him. It needed but one turn more to bring him forth on his mis- 
sion. McGIellan was now on the Peninsula, McDowell at Fred- 
ericksburg, and Banks enfeebled in the Shenandoah valley, when 
Jackson, the vulture of the rebellion, pouncing from his moun- 
tain home upon our scattered regiments, and driving them back 
upon Maryland, threatened Harper's Ferry and the northern 
defenses of the Capital itself. The Government hastened to 
strengthen the command at the Ferry, and cannon were ordered 
from the Yard at Washington. But experienced officers were 
wanting. Resignations had carried over to the enemies of the 
country her most ungrateful sons. In this dilemma the guns 
were put in charge of young master Daniel, and the youth, yearn- 
ing for action, was sent along to aid him. On Sunday evening, 
almost at an hour's notice, they left with the Naval battery. On 
Thursday following he returned to procure additional supplies of 
ammunition, and to bear back some report of the situation. His 
clear statements and manly bearing so pleased the Secretary of 
War that he offered him the appointment of a Captaincy on the 
spot. This was between nine and ten o'clock at night. The next 
morning, with his wonted celerity, he was on his way back uftder 
his new commission, having passed, as in a moment, from the ci- 
vilian to the soldier, and urging forward, he joined Saxton at 
Harper's Ferry on the 31st of May, in 1862. A week after, he 
was acting at Winchester on the staff of General Sigel. It was 
at this stirring period, while on the road between the Ferry and 
Winchester, that two young officers, once associates and pupils of 
the Kittenhouse Academy, each ignorant of the other's connec- 
tion with the Army, met in the middle of the night, one marching 
with his regiment eastward, the other with a body of cavalry 
rapidly riding to the west. As they were sweeping by, though 



I 



17 

under cover of the darkness, one hearing the other's voice giving 
an order to his men, instantly recognized him, and the two former 
school-fellows drew nigh for a short greeting and a swift good-bye, 
and each strode on again. They were Major Morrison and Cap- 
tain Dahlgren, both cut down in the flower and prime of their 
young manhood, both sleeping in a soldier's sepulchre, and both 
cherished in every loyal heart as the true sons of America, the 
noble scions of her noblest race. The Captain passed on to the 
front with Sigel, when Jackson, now in his turn, was compelled 
to fall back and fly for safety down the mountain passes, toward 
the valley of the James. At once taking his stand among the 
foremost, he was recognized by all that observed him as a princely 
spirit, and a true knight drawing his sword in a righteous cause, 
and determined only to perform his duty in the most profound 
oblivion of all peril, whether from the paucity of his own force, 
or from the overwhelming numbers of the foe. From that hour 
forward, he seems never to have paused or rested. He was ever 
in the van, not rashly but piously daring and devoutly doing for 
the love and fealty he bore to his native land. With a higher 
inspiration than that of the bold Saxon, Fitz James of Scotland, 
he could say : 

"Or if a path be dangerous known, 
The danger's self is lure alone." 

Or rather, to him, in the path of duty, there was no danger. 
Henceforth, it was one continued conflict, one stern and bloody 
battle, he fighting ever where the fight grew thickest. And on 
he sped, threading the wild mountain passes, spurring over plain 
and ford, through field and forest, in heat and cold, in storm and 
sunshine, often hungry, weary, needing rest, but never daunted, 
never dismayed, bright and busy, with a keen eye and sturdy arm, 
sweeping like the whirlwind on the war-path, falling like a 
thunder-bolt upon the foe ! 
3 



18 

It is difficult to describe with satisfaction two years of such a 
life, mingled as it is, with so many lofty characters, thrilling ac- 
tions, shifting fortunes, and becoming a part of one of the most 
stupendous representations ever recorded by the Muse of history. 
Indeed, much of the interior experience of our armies, much of 
that which forms the most powerful element of what men term 
romance, will never probably be gathered up. The thoughts, 
feelings, sensations of the individual soldier, moved by a thou- 
sand strong and resistless currents of influence, that pour in 
upon him from every quarter, the memories of home, the hopes of 
the future, the sympathies of comrades, the camp, the hospital, 
the drum-beat, the march, the bivouac, the foray, the quick alarm, 
the rushing onset, the fearful concussion, the rattling musketry, 
the roar of artillery, the neighing of horses, " the flame and 
smoke, and shout, and groan, and sabre stroke, and death shots, 
falling thick and fast as lightning from a mountain cloud," the 
swift slaughter, " the garments rolled in blood," the equipage, 
the heraldry, " the pomp and circumstance," the manoeuver and 
agony of war, the desolation following, in dreadful havoc, be- 
reavements, bleeding hearts, broken spirits, lonely dwellings, 
weeds of mourning, woe and lamentation, filling the land with 
sighs and tears above the innumerable graves, where lie 

"Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent." 

What tongue can express all this ? What being but the God 
who made us, can fully comprehend it ? We must be content 
with fragments, a few sketches, the meager outlines of the great 
story which carries in it the very existence of a mighty nation. 

The year that elapsed from* the month of June in 1862, to the 
same month in 1863, was a dismal period in the department of 
the Potomac. Reverses and disasters befell our arms in every di- 
rection. But through all this year of intense activity and supreme 
peril, serving successively on the stafi" of Saxton, Sigel, Burn- 



.19 

side, Hooker and Meade, the young Captain passed unharmed. 
While many a brave commander and gallant soldier fell beside 
him, it seemed as though an invisible hand had covered him from 
the iron hail through which he so often rode. He had done good 
work in the Mountain department, and afterwards at Warrenton, 
at Gainesville, at Manassas, at Centreville, at Fairfax, in the sec- 
ond battle of Bull Run, and in truth, over the whole seat of war 
in Virginia between the Potomac and the Rapidan. In the 
autumn of 1862 this region was overrun by prowling companies 
under the direction of guerrilla chiefs, prominent among whom 
were White and Moseby, who, with a thorough knowledge of the 
country, and aided by a perfidious population, in a thousand ways 
did serious injury to the Union cause. To countervail these dep- 
redations, Greneral Sigel summoned a number of resolute spirits, 
among whom were Koening, the Congers, and Dahlgren, and 
giving them orders to rid the region of these predatory bauds, sent 
them forth with their lives in their hands to this dangerous work. 
Yet nothing doubting, and fearing nothing, they scoured the coun- 
try, scouting here and there, harassing the enemy, surprising his 
detachments, obtaining valuable information, making important 
captures, and driving before them the dastardly marauders who 
played the part of farmers by day and felons by night. Foremost 
of these dauntless young officers was Ulric Dahlgren — always cool, 
always reliable, ready for the most hazardous attempt, yet prudent 
and sagacious. He was often selected before all others to reconnoi- 
tre the enemy and ascertain his numbers and position. He never 
went forth on these occasions without accomplishing the object 
designed, and returning crowned with a splendid success. Of the 
many brilliant exploits he thus performed, we can refer to but 
few in detail ; but they are such as will stand forever in our his- 
tory, proving his valor and shedding a glory on the National arms. 
The dash into Fredericksburg, with sixty men, near daylight 
of the 9th of November, 1862, after a night's hard riding through 



20 

a driving snow-storm, eucouutering on the way almost incredible 
obstacles, tlie surprise and rout of the enemy, though in far supe- 
rior numbers, the desperate fighting through the streets, which 
wrung from a rebel officer commanding, a reluctant tribute of ad- 
miration, as he declared that our youthful Captain was "the 
bravest Union officer he had ever seen !" will be the theme of 
adulation, as long as bold deeds are held in remembrance. The 
curious hand of Art has already embalmed the scene, and given 
to its daring an immortality that will never perish. The repre- 
sentation of that heroic feat will hang upon many a wall through- 
out the dwellings of the Republic, for the study and the pride of 
coming generations. Several companies of Virginia cavalry were 
thus scattered by three score Union troopers, who, with a loss of 
one killed and four missing, brought off a number of prisoners 
exceeding half their whole force. 

On the 11th of December, when Burnsidc was preparing to 
fight the first battle of Fredericksburg, Sigel, moving forward 
from Fairfax with his own Division, sent Dahlgreu to the front to 
communicate. The Captain, eager for action, obtained consent to 
serve for the time on the staff of the commanding General. Re- 
peated eflurts had been made to complete tlie pontoon bridge, but 
in vain, owing to the deadly fire of the enemy's marksmen. One 
of the regiments from Michigan volunteered to cross in boats and 
drive the rebels from their cover, which was gallantly performed. 
With the first of those that landed was Captain Dahlgren, and 
near him fell the Reverend Chaplain Fuller. When it was found 
that our men were unable to carry the works of the enemy. Burn- 
side then dispatched him to Sigel, to hasten up with his Corps. 
Delivering the orders to Sigel, he started back at 10 o'clock that 
night, and the next morning, at 5 o'clock, gave his report at head- 
quarters, but so exhausted from the great exertion that he came 
well nigh falling from his horse. 

During the second battle of Fredericksburg, or Chancellorsville, 



21 

one of the most bloody of the war, on the 1st, 2d, and 3d of May, 
in 18G3, he was on the staiF of General Hooker, and again sent to 
run the gauntlet of rebel riflemen, for the distance of twenty-five 
miles, to communicate with Stoueman, then returnino- from his 
great cavalry expedition toward Richmond, in the rear of the 
rebel army. This'most dangerous mission he performed, riding 
. from Falmouth to Kelly's Ford, and back again, untouched of the 
countless balls that whistled all around him. Such deeds of en- 
durance and heroism could only be wrought by a soul on fire with 
a sublime inspiration, for they seem in their reality to eclipse the 
wildest legends of knighthood in the olden time ! 

On the 8th of June, 1863, General Hooker, mistrusting the 
preparations of Lee for a grand invasion of the North, and seek- 
ing to check, if not wholly defeat, the movements of the enemy, 
hurled his cavalry upon the famous rebel, General Stuart, at Bev- 
erly Ford, where a scene of the most desperate and bloody fight- 
ing occurred known in the annals of modern warftire. In that 
fearful struggle the Captain, sent to act as aid to General Pleasan- 
ton, at his own request, bore a splendid part. His subsequent 
description of the battle there is not time to recite in full. But 
the peerless charge of that great day was made by Major Morris, 
by whose side he rode, leading the 6th Pennsylvania, " Hush's 
Lancers," who cut their way through the brigade of General F. 
II. D. Lee, up to Stuart's Headquarters, and within a hundred 
yards of their artillery. I give the account in his own stirring 
words : " Their brigade," he says, " was drawn up in mass, in a 
beautiful field, one third of a mile across, woods on each side. 
On their side was the ridge on which their artillery was posted, 
and alongside of a house in which General Stuart had his Head- 
quarters. We charged in column of companies. As we came out 
of our woods, they rained shell into us; as we approached nearer, 
driving them like sheep before us, they threw two rounds of grape 
and canister, which killing as many of their men as of ours, they 



22 

stopped firing, and advanced their carbiniers. All this time we 
were dashing through them, killing and being killed. Some 
were trampled to death in trying to jump the ditches which in- 
tervened, and falling in, were fallen upon by others, who did not 
get over. Major Morris commanded the regiment, and I was 
riding very near him, when, just as he was jumping a ditch, a 
dose of canister came along, and I saw his horse fall over him, 
but could not tell whether he was killed or not, for at the same 
moment my horse was shot in three places, and fell and threw me, 
so that I could see nothing for a few moments. At this moment, 
the column turned to go back, finding the enemy had surrounded 
us. I saw the rear just passing, and about to leave me behind. 
So I gave my horse a tremendous kick, and got him on his legs 
again ; and, finding he could move, I mounted and rode off" after 
the rest, just escaping being taken. I got a heavy stroke over the 
arm with the back of a sabre, which bruised me somewhat, and 
nearly unhorsed me. This was the most brilliant fight of the 
day." 

This indeed is bloody-handed war, and the very story of it 
makes the vital current run cold in the veins. But if we must go 
to battle ; if there could be, as there was, no longer any peace j if 
the nation had been driven, as it was, to this dread alternative, 
either to submit to its own disintegration without resistance, or to 
take up the sword in self-preservation, then the bolder the daring, 
and the hotter the strife, the sooner shall the mighty wager be de- 
cided. The soul in such a scene, and for such a cause, becomes 
doubly immortal, and men will remember with quickened pulses, 
that fiery charge which rivals Balaklava and the great Six Hun- 
dred. They will celebrate it in songs of admiration, like the 
Covenanter's battle chaunt of Motherwell, or like Macaulay's 
martial hymn of the Henry of Navarre. 

When, in the months of July and June of 1863, the rebel army 
had crossed into Maryland and Pennsylvania, and were advancing 



23 

toward Harrisburg, Captain Dahlgren, who was on duty at the 
Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac, solicited and obtained 
permission to harass, and as far as possible cut off the rebel com- 
munications. This with a mere handful of men he accomplished in 
a manner surpassing expectation — among many exploits of the ex- 
pedition capturing the dispatches of the arch rebel, Davis to his 
greatest General, and thus discovering to our Government the 
most important information in regard to the condition and designs 
of the enemy. After the decisive battle of Gettysburg, he joined 
the advance of Kilpatrick's cavalry, and on Monday, July 6th, he 
participated in a desperate charge into Hagerstown, then occupied 
by numbers of rebel soldiery. While skirmishing with the wily 
foe through the streets of that ancient borough, a ball struck the 
ankle of his right foot. As he felt the sting, though then all 
unconscious of the severity of the woun-d, he remarked to a friend 
who rode at his side, in a style of quiet pleasantry peculiar to him- 
self, "Paul, I have got it at last!" For a full half-hour he yet 
remained in the saddle, until he fainted from loss of blood and was 
lifted from his horse ! 

And now a new chapter was opened in his life. His martial 
course was arrested — the day of suffering had come ! God in mercy 
had spared him indeed, from then going down into the dark valley, 
and for a while had turned his feet from the war-path, albeit 
maimed and marred, that He might show him greater things than 
human strife^ while rocking in suspense before the open portals of 
Eternity. After three days of exhausting torture, such as the 
wounded patriot only suffers in the close of a great battle, where 
the debris and confusion of the fight lie on all sides, like the 
wrecks in the trail of the avalanche, on Thursday evening, the 
night of the 9th of July, in 18G3, he was brought home to his 
father's house in Washington. But neither brothers nor father 
stood at the door to welcome him. All had gone forth in the 
service of the country. A younger brother was pursuing his 



24 



course at the Naval Academy at Newport ; an older brother had 
been standing in the trenches before Vicksburg, and was proudly 
sharing, at that very hour, in one of the most remarkable achieve- 
ments of this unparalleled struggle ; while the Admiral himself 
was absent in command of the fleet in the harbor of Charleston. 
In allusion to this fact, and exhibiting as lie ever did the utmost 
sensitiveness to all that could give that father pain, he said to a 
member of the family, on reaching the chamber where he had been 
carried, ''if my father had been here I could not have consented 
to be brought home, because this bloody wound would have tor- 
tured him, and that would have been more than I am able to bear I" 
It was in mid-summer, and the heat intense, the sun burning like 
an oven. During the month of agony that followed, which the 
tenderest care of kindred affection and the utmost diligence of 
medical skill could not alleviate, the sufi"ering warrior uttered no 
complaint, made no sign of impatience, nor even spoke of hatred 
and revenge toward those whose foul and unnatural crimes have 
plunged the country into such distress. On hearing that a for- 
mer acquaintance and school-mate, fighting on the rebel side, was 
wounded and a prisoner in our hands, he, in the magnanimity of 
his nature, forgetting the feud for a moment in their common 
hurt, protested his sorrow for the affliction in terms of impassioned 
pity. His spirit bore no malice. He was too great, too pure, too 
powerful for that. He hated not the persons, only the characters 
of conspirators, and when they were smitten down his sternness 
relaxed, and with relentings of compassion he only sought to re- 
turn good for evil, and blessing for cursing on their heads. It 
was the hope of his friends and surgeons that his fair frame 
might be preserved, and the member saved on which the wound 
had fallen. For many days every means was used that could be 
devised, but there was no relief The sunken eye, the hollow 
cheek, the growing inflammation, the excrutiating pain, all told 
how vain were the eff"orts to prevent his maiming. Terrible as 



25 

was the alternative, and doubtful as was the issue, it came at last ; 
and on Tuesday, the 21st of July, he suffered amputation, parting 
with that which was dear to him almost as life itself, only in the 
uncertain hope of saving life and serving once again the sacred 
cause of country. The maiming of living men is so common a 
consequence of war, that we finally come to look upon it with in- 
difference; but the loss and the sacrifice are none the less agoniz- 
ing to those who endure them. In one view, nothing can be more 
repugnant to the instincts of our nature, than the sundering of 
limbs from the bright beauty and flowering manhood of the soldier 
who has devoted his living body to the havoc and waste of battle ; 
but in another view, the scars men get in such a service become 
their badges of honor and symbols of fame that shall live forever ! 
The sacrifice, severe as it then seemed, was promptly made, but 
the hope of recovery still trembled in the balance. For many 
days he hung on the brink of life, uncertain if the Power that 
made him, and still had him in keeping, would bid him return to 
the tragedy of time, or beckon him onward through the portals 
of Eternity, already ajar, to confront the vast solemnities that lie 
beyond. There are hours when the sun withdraws his blinding 
brightness from the face of the sky, more fully to reveal through 
the shadows of the night, tha grandeur of the universe. There 
are also hours in the darkness of adversity, when the soul of man 
discovers a more profound and awful sense of its own existence, 
and is filled with the mighty joy of those great thoughts of Grod 
and immortality, which bring to the human spirit a swift maturity. 
Such a time now came to him, once more at home, amid the scenes 
of childhood, and by-gone associations. Alive, as never before, to 
the gentle memories and cherished tokens of other dajs, he called 
back from the sea of reminiscence every floating waif, and held 
communion with familiar forms and visions, that came before him 
in his prostration, and silently ministered a solace and a strength 
4 



26 



like the descending dew. Who can tell what angels of mercy in 
mingled pity and admiration then hovered around liis bed, or if 
the glorified spirit of liis departed mother were not present, watch- 
inor over the son of her aflfection and kindlins; afresh in him the 
flame of the early devotion ? Certain it is that he alone, of all 
who came and went in that chamber, displayed the calmness of a 
great serenity, himself unmoved, save when some finger pointed 
to the cause of the afflicted country, and then he roused into a 
startling energy. But otherwise he lay so quietly in his consum- 
ing weakness, frequently seeking to lull the bodily pain he felt, in 
the sound of sacred songs, hymning to himself the strains of 
younger days, that had often borne up his mind to Heaven in the 
worship of the family. Low upon his back, sometimes agonized 
and always helpless, he looked hour by hour steadily upon death, 
his nature rapidly ripening in a full measure of resignation to the 
will of Heaven, and gathering an unshaken confidence in the 
mercy of the Redeemer. Nobler and better thoughts filled him 
with composure, and all the tenderness of his being came gushing 
forth again like the fragrance of mangled flowers. He now 
turned with strong desire and unaffected satisfaction to the Volume 
of inspiration, as to a high tower of refuge. On its great and 
loving promise he reposed his aching heart. The fourteenth 
chapter of John became especially as a pillow to his weary mind. 
In its assurance, he cast the whole substance of his destiny on the 
fatherhood of God, and daily grew purer and greater in the new- 
found fraternity of Jesus, on whose propitiation alone he began 
to take reliance for the certainty of his present and final salva- 
tion. So when the Sabbath came round, and through open win- 
dows looking towards the church, he could hear the lofty melodies 
of the sanctuary fioating out upon the stillness of the consecrated 
air, he would often pause and call the family to listen, and there, 
hushed into wrapt attention, he caught again the old refrains of 
Zion so long resounding from her glorious hills, and on those 



27 

snatches aud broken notes that drifted to his car in fragments, 
his exulting spirit mse aloft toward the realms of the blessed and 
immortal ! On one of these Sabbath days he sent for me, and 
then, for the first time, I looked upon the wounded soldier. Oh, 
how beautiful, and brave, and grand he seemed, as in his waste and 
woe-worn plight of fleshly torture, at length I beheld him 
stretched out, and saw the signals of that fearful maiming. In 
spite of all, my tears ran down, as he lifted up to my salutation 
one sweet smile of greeting from that couch of physical agonj. 
That moment is one of the living junctures of duration that will 
never perish till reason shall be dethroned, for I felt myself in 
the presence of one far higher and holier than myself, on whom 
the mystic unction of God had passed and made him a prince and 
a king forever ! Nor can we doubt that there, in the hour of his 
deepest trouble, he entered into the spiritual rest of Christ's 
chosen people ; and there, in the gloom of his sorest darkness, the 
Covenant of his eternal salvation was accomplished. 

Just preceding the amputation, he had been commissioned as a 
Colonel, but it was feared that the excitement of its announce- 
ment would be too great for his shattered nerves. A day or two 
after, however, the document was placed in his hand, when the 
eye of the youthful warrior again gleamed with the former fire, 
and his whole face glowed as with a light of transfiguration. And 
there he, who had borne in his heart so great a fealty to his coun- 
try, once more from his prostrate position, lifted up his right arm 
and swore allegiance to the cause for which he had already freely 
exposed his life. It was a scene for the highest e£fort of Art. Let 
the painter limn, let the sculptor carve the young hero at that 
instant, when the name of Jehovah sanctioned the devotion he 
professed, and which has since been sealed by his most precious 
blood ! 

At last the peril of his condition began to disappear, and him- 
self and friends were permitted to indulge sanguine hopes, not 



28 

only of his spared life, but also of his ultimate restoration, so far 
as one may be that has suffered sucli a calamity. On the 18th of 
August he was carried to Newport, where he spent a short time 
in the family of Mi . S. Abbot Lawrence, another uncle, whose 
sudden and lamented death cast the only shadow on his sojourn 
amid the delightful scenes of that famous place of resort. After 
this, visiting Philadelphia and Harrisburg, and returning to 
Washington, he sailed at length in the Massachusetts to join his 
father, Admiral of the fleet in the harbor of Charleston, and 
arrived off the bar on the 24th of the following November. 
Durins: these months of convalescence his conversations with 
friends around him, and his correspondence with those at a dis- 
tance, showed, at every tuin, the proofs of a great soul far 
advanced beyond the common spirit and temper of the times, and 
gave, what we now see to have been, '^premonitions of his approach- 
ing end. It is remarkable to contemplate the great qualities of 
the patriot and believing Christian, that so grew in him to a degree 
of perfection which is, in most cases only attained through long 
years of assiduous and careful experience. It is impossible to 
recite the numerous passages from his lips and his pen that evince 
a magnaminity and earnestness quite beyond the measure of 
his public activities, and quite incomprehensible to the sordid 
and benighted judgment of a selfish and mercenary age. These 
developments of his character, though manifold in form, are essen- 
tially one in principle. "Writing from the flag-ship before Charles- 
ton to a valued friend in a distant New England home, he says : 
" I stay to take part in the great fight ; if I die, what death more 
glorious than the death of men fighting for their country ? Life 
is only the vestibule to real existence ; a state of preparation for 
the future. Every one has something to fulfill in this world as in 
a school. The duty must be falLhfnlhj performed here, or the 
penalty be paid hereafter." To a suggestion that some might 
esteem him only too reckless, in his eagerness for the fray, he 



29 



replies : '' I never like any one to call me rash, for you must re- 
member now I do none of those things which some call daring, 
without thinking well over the object to be attained, and if it be 
wortb the risk involved ; for I feel the responsibility of other lives 
more than my own. There is no excuse for exposing these unne- 
cessarily. But where a great object requires considerable risk, of 
course, no one is to hold back then." Here we have the secret 
of his action unfolded by himself. How simple, direct and 
grand are the sentiments and mainsprings of such an cuergy. 
Ou another occasion, being asked with what emotions he rode into 
au engagement, knowing that every moment he was liable to be 
hurled into Eternity, he replied with the utmost solemnity and 
imprcssiveness : '-1 always feel a conviction that in going into bat- 
tle I may never return alive. I think over my sins and pray God 
to pardon them. I never go down to the fight without first oifer- 
ing prayer to the Almighty for forgiveness and acceptance !" 
And so, we now know, he proved his own confessor in the final 
strife, and went out into the bloody peril from the closet of devo- 
tion ! Such was the faith and prayer of this noble Christian 
soldier — the full equal of those men who fought for conscience 
sake, with stern old Cromwell, and the great Coligni, and with the 
no less glorious fathers of our own Eevolution — a man who offered 
his life upon the public altars, whenever God should be pleased 
to accept the sacrifice ; who fought the enemies of his coun- 
try and of humanity, not from hatred or revenge, nor for 
the hope of earthly glory, or the desire of any temporal ambi- 
tion or reward whatsoever, but from the pure and lofty sentiment 
of duty, of justice, truth and honor, to defend this heritage of 
liberty and make still more secure the welfare of coming countless 
generations ! 

We have followed him to the presence of that great field, where 
secession and treason commenced their course of violence and 
blood, and where the first thunders of the war-cloud began to roll. 



30 

Here, for two months, lie shared his father's company, a witness 
of the movements of the land and naval forces of the Union, in 
one of the most protracted and desperate sieges known in mari- 
time history. He came thither crippled and enfeebled in body, 
and leaning upon his crutches ; but his soul was buoyant and 
strong as ever, and laughed out of her shattered dwelling-place 
on all that mighty spectacle ! Clear in his martial conceptions, 
accurate in his military judgments, sagacious and far-seeing in all 
his calculations and intrepid in the execution of whatever plans 
had been adopted, his energy overcame all difficulties, and kept 
him in constant motion. He carefully pondered every position, 
and weighed the probabilities of every manoeuver. His eye swept 
round the horizon with all the scrutiny of a veteran commander. 
Along the low and dim shore-line of the waters, looking directly 
up the harbor, and standing off to the right, rise the formidable 
batteries of Sullivan's Island lining a distance of two or three 
miles, with the guns of Moultrie, Beauregard, Battery Bee and 
minor works beyond. Directly opposite appears the famous 
Sumter, looming darkly from the waves, not as heretofore, a 
regular, massive, splendid piece of masonry, floating the proud 
ensign of the stars and stripes, but crumbled and battle-scarred, 
a heap of ruins, though sheltering a strong garrison and flouting 
a new white staudard of delusion, the ftilse symbol of the darkest 
and most guilty cause for which men ever flew to arms. To the 
left of Sumter runs a long stretch of sand-beach, whose low emi- 
nences, scarcely to be noticed but by a practiced eye — once in the 
possession of rebel forces, now recovered and resting under the 
old banner of the Union — afford, in the fortifications of Gregg, 
Wagner, and a number of others of only less dimcBsions, still 
strongly manned and bristling with cannon, a powerful position 
to the loyal troops, in their slow but sure advance upon the fated 
town — a position won by peerless valor, and maintained with the 
life-blood of many a Union hero who has fallen there ! Right 



31 

up, between Moultrie aud Sumter, glitter afar the spires of the 
scornfui city, mocking at her fiite, aud defying all the thunder- 
bolts of war's red hand to hurl her from her impregnable founda- 
tions. Before, and on either side the narrow channel, are faintly 
discerned the batteries that command this seaward avenue of ap- 
proach • on the right, Forts Ripley and Pinckney ; on the left. 
Fort Johnson ; in the river, long lines of huge piles, that fill it 
with obstructions ; the entire element fringed by the heavy muni- 
ments of the wharves and docks, and filled beneath with hidden 
mines and snares, that loaded with perils for the unwary and 
charged with death to all hostile comers, make the whole harbor 
one direful similitude of perdition ! At the mouth of this gate- 
way of death he saw the squadron of his country proudly flying 
the flag of Admiral Dahlgren, his father ; the noble Ironsides, 
with her giant brood of Monitors, swimming the wave or riding 
at anchor ; and saw the white tents of Gilmore on the beach ; :md 
saw the coveted prize of so many varying fortunes in the distance 
— the birth-place of the rebellion — whose parricidal deed first 
plunged the nation into this long and bitter and bloody contest; 
and saw the great guns of the Titan siege, and the stupendous 
paraphernalia of the most terrific bombardment of ancient or 
modern times. He saw the southern sun rise and set, and the 
silver moon and quiet stars look down upon that mystery of mari- 
time magnificence and of warlike array; and numbering the days 
on those mighty chronometers of the world, he confidently awaited 
the hour when Providence should bring forth the splendid success, 
to winch all prior movements and events might be counted but 
the stepping-stones of this grand ultimate fortune. Incited by 
such enthusiasm, he ceased not to observe and study every detail 
of the great scene before him with unabated interest — now riding 
by day at speed along the strand to the most distant Union bat- 
teries — now joining, at nightfall, the scoutiug-parties that scoured 
in all directions through every channel of approach, and often 



32 

passing under the shadow of Fort Sumter, as though no traitor- 
foe were lurking there — and now tossing in the surf-boat, pulled 
by brawny arms from point to point, in the midst of danger, never 
shrinking, yet ever exposed. In all weathers, with health not 
fully restored, and a maimed limb not thoroughly healed, his bold 
and fearless spirit, still rising above these restraints, eagerly 
watched for the first opportunity to strike a shivering blow at that 
fatal nest of treason, and drive out forever from the soil they 
have polluted, the guilty conspirators against the peace of the 
world and the welfare of mankind. It was under such an impulse, 
as we have already seen, that he wrote to his friends in the North 
But the weeks wore on, and the siege was unavoidably delayed. 
God had appointed him to the final sacrifice in a manner far more 
startling, and on a mission if possible yet more sacred. Father 
and son should separate again, and the day came for their parting. 
Alas, could not the bitter casualties of fortune have been ordered 
otherwise ! How little did they then realize that when they bade 
"farewell," amid the roar of guns and the wild requiem of the 
disordered waves, they should, living, look upon one another's 
face no more on earth. On the morning of January 22d, in 1864, 
he went out from his father's presence for the last time, sailing in 
the Massachusetts for Philadelphia, and arriving in Washington 
on the ensuing 2Gth. Hera he lingered for awhile, not yet by 
any means restored to perfect soundness, but still waiting and 
burning with eager desire for active service in the field. To every 
suggestion that appeared designed to deter him from his purpose, 
he kindly but resolutely refused his ear, deaf to all but that secret, 
resistless, divine call of duty which from the first had controlled 
him, and yearning only for an opportunity to break from his con- 
finement, and be sweeping, though like an eagle wounded, yet 
dauntlessly onward in his flight. During this time, he composed 
an article detailing the operations before Charleston in a style at 
once so calm, so clear, so comprehensive, as to silence all cavil and 



33 

dispel the groundless complaints of the ignorant and impatient. 
This article, which has been printed since his death, sounds to us 
now like a voice from the mouth of the grave. It was published 
over the signature of " Truth," which was ever more to him, by 
far something more, than simply a nam de lylumc; it was the sub- 
stance of his character, and the animating spirit of his whole life, 
and never more conspicuously did it shine forth than in this last 
complete vindication of the siege of Charleston — a paper freighted 
in every line with a candor, a majesty, and self-evidencing power 
which only belongs to the truth itself — and which, being at the 
same time a work of filial aifection, as well as a patriotic and public 
defense of the national prowess, might well stand for the crowning 
work of all his intellectual efforts — for the last-written testimony 
of his hand, which alas ! he was so soon to seal by the offering 
up of life. 

Having heard .that an expedition was fitting out for the express 
purpose of attempting the release of our dying soldiers from the 
prisons of Richmond, and well knowing that some of his old com- 
panions in arms, especially some of the Pennsylvania Lancers, 
with whom he had charged at Beverly Ford, were still pining and 
suffering more than death in that foul Bastile of the rebellion, 
and stirred by the tidings of their anguish, which, borne on every 
breeze, were filling the heart of the whole nation with heaviness, 
causing every cheek to tingle with shame, and every soul to heave 
with the sighing of bitterness, he could no longer be restrained. 
Applying to his superiors, he was urgent to convince them that 
he could endure the work and hardship essentially as well as ever, 
and though obliged to be assisted into the saddle, yet once up- 
right, he gave ocular demonstrations of his wonderful skill and 
endurance, and finally obtained consent to go on this last great 
errand. On the 18th of February he left his father's house in 
Washington and came to the camp in front for the last time. On 
5 



34 

Saturday, February 2Gth, lie -wrote his last letter to his father 
from Steveusburg, requesting its delivery only in case he should 
never return. Under General Kilpatrick, who coramauded the 
expedition, he vras to have a separate detachment of five hundred 
men, to proceed by a different route, but rejoin the main body 
before Richmond, and participate in the hazardous but glorious 
attempt to enter the rebel Capital and open the dungeons of tilth 
and wretchedness that have been so long, to many a Union martyr, 
a living sepulchre. All things being now prepared, he parted 
with many a noble comrade, and emerged from camp at night- fall, 
crossed the Rapidan at Ely's Ford about 10 o'clock on Sunday 
evening, and proceeded on his way t9ward Spottsylvania Court 
House. 

To follow his movements from that time forward down to ihe 
midnight of the Wednesday ensuing, is somewhat difiicult, no 
reliable account having been furnished from any source. liebcl 
mendacity is proverbial, and we have necessarily but friigmcntary 
and imperfect reports from our friends. We only know that the 
great object of the expedition was defeated, and one of the proud- 
est and most promising soldiers of the Union was sacrificed amid 
utter disasters and delays, the profound mystery of which is yet 
as impenetrable as the fabled riddle of the Sphynx, and the pro- 
founder meaning of which God only can unfold to us as the 
leaves of the great volume of His providence shall be slowly 
overturned. We only know they did not meet as arranged. Kil- 
patrick, on arriving at the point of attack, finding the enemy 
posted in superior numbers, and unable to account for the delay 
of Dahlgren to come up in time, was obliged to withdraw his 
troops, and passing down the Peninsula towards Williamsburg, 
find a way of safety out to the Union lines. Meanwhile, it is 
alleged that the advance column, under the noble young Colonel, 
was betrayed and misled far out of his intended route, through 
either the stupidity or treachery of a negro guide, and the misfor- 



85 



tune, wliicli thus iucreased the distance, wasted their strength, 
and prolonged the time, was not discovered till too late for an 
eifeetual remedy. Passing through Spottsylvania in the twilight 
of the Monday morning, they halted for rest and refreshment. 
Then it was that the young commander rode along the line of the 
column, on most of whom his appearance for the first time, made 
the deepest impression ; for they saw in his quiet, pleasant bear- 
ing, the man whose exploits in many a stern and bloody fight, had 
made his name a watcliM'^ord in the army. Not yet in full 
strength from the mutilation of a former contest, but looking on 
his charger, as he always did, the gallant soldier, expressions of 
satisfaction were heard in the ranks by the subordinate ofiicers. 
On JMonday afternoon the command reached Frederickshall Sta- 
tion, where breaking the communications of the rebel army and 
capturing a number of ofiicers, it passed on rapidly southward, 
halting under the cover of the night and in a heavy storm of 
rain, for such fare as the bivouac hastily afi"ords. The Colonel 
was observed by an ofiieer, who assisted him to alight, to be 
drenched with rain, but unwearied in spirit, and cheerful as the 
most sanguine among them. On Tuesday by day dawn, he was 
again in saddle, and before mid-day reached the James river, 
some distance below Goochland. Passing down several miles 
with the current, an attempt was made to cross to the southern 
bank, but there was not found a single vestige of a ford at the 
spot which the special guide had pointed out. And here it was 
that suspicion of foul play first flashed upon the misguided col- 
umn, now far from any succor of friends, in an enemy's country, 
filled with scouts and skirmishers, thoroughly roused, and track- 
ing and seeking to waylay them at every step. Nothing now re- 
mained but in disappointment to move on, and if possible, rejoin 
Kilpatrick, or taking the hazard of the long gauntlet of sixty 
miles, to cut his way out through snares and secret gins and the 
fell ambush of cowardly but savage foes ! So keeping the north 



36 



bauk, they rode toward lliclimond, and only halted about sunset, 
when the bastions of the city were already in sight. During this 
pause he was noticed to be surveying the horizon with gaze in- 
tent, no doubt striving to descry from afar some signal of Kilpat- 
rick. It was however in vain, and he now knew that he was 
alone with his chosen five hundred, within rifle-shot of the rebel 
Capital. When the pale night had spread her sheltering mantle 
above them, he moved cautiously forward, and was soon brought 
in contact with the sharpshooters of the rebel advance, who at 
once began a heavy fire upon the sturdy column. The men were 
promptly formed for the charge, and in that perilous moment the 
spirit of their glorious commander shone forth in all its splendor. 
So calmly, so cheerfully, amid the leaden hail, rode he along the 
lines, dispensing counsel and courage to his troops, when at his 
word, they dashed on like a bolt falling from the sky, scattering 
the enemy on all sides and di'iviug them into their works. But 
what were five hundred men so nigh to the rebel lair? Oh, that 
an army could have followed these bold outriders of the Union 
cause, and supported them at that hour in their superb attempt ! 
But this was not to be, and so the swift five hundred, tarrying no 
longer, at full speed coursed down the road in plain view of the 
accursed city; then diverging northward, took their way to the 
streams across whose fords they looked for safety from the pur- 
suit of the infuriated foe. The lowering sky now again broke in 
a cold and heavy rain, and the chill night stifi'ened the clothes of 
the men ; yet on they rode, now strangely and sadly to be sepa- 
rated, the Colonel with a small party taking one fork at the cross- 
roads, and the main portion of his command another, unable to 
distinguish in the thick darkness, each other's course or company. 
At length the morning opened on that decimated and devoted 
band of out-worn patriots, and the sun ascended then alas ! upon 
eyes that should never behold him rise again. The rain had once 
more ceased, and in the gra}- and misty twilight, the hunger- 



37 



stricken party of less than one hundred men, crossed over the 
lonely ferry of the sinister Pamunkey, and halted for a meager 
breakfast from their all too scanty stores. This done, they rode 
on rapidly, but without confusion, as if moving toward instead of 
from an array of battle; no man more resolute or full of hope 
than the untiring and gallant commander, on whose voice his men 
now hung for the very breath of their inspiration, while he, en- 
during more fatigue and hardship than any of his soldiers, was 
still and ever riding at their head. It was past noon when they 
reached the Mattapony, where finding the ferry-boat too small, 
the horses were compelled to swim to the other side. Here, by 
the sluggish stream, on that forest shore, a vision breaks before 
us which we pause for a moment to survey with a feeling of min- 
gled wonder and scorn. Quietly and in order the crossing pro- 
ceeds, while over the steep and wooded bank behind them a few 
pickets are posted to guard against surprise. At the water's edge 
stands the fearless Dahlgren, calmly but attentively noting the 
slow passage of the river by his weary men. In an instant more 
the report of rifles is heard from the hill ; the rebels are firing 
from their hiding places upon our picket-guard, who, sighting 
their guns through the brambles, return the deadly salute. , Pres- 
ently, though in total ignorance of the force that may rush down 
upon him for his capture or his death, the clear, ringing voice of 
the young chieftain calls away the last man from the ridges above, 
to cross over the ferry before him, while he is left alone on the 
hither side — alone with the enemy, a wounded ofilcer, a single sol- 
dier, a solitary man, unhorsed, and standing upheld by his 
crutches, but without one helping hand from any earthly quarter. 
And now the rebel bullets begin to whistle around him! Yet 
with a proud look of ineffable contempt, he coolly smiles at the 
hidden dastards, and exclaiming aloud to draw them from their 
concealment that he may face them openly, he then at a venture 
discharges his revolver in defiance through the thicket! But not 



38 

a man dare meet liim in the open day ! Plere again is a subject 
for the poet's fancy, or the painter's pencil. Here is a contrast 
of the long challenged Northern cowardice and the long vaunted 
Southern chivalry, to make the loyal heart of the nation beat again 
with unmitigated scorn for the craven soul of the one and with 
unmingled admiration fur the dauntless spirit of the other. Not 
one of the skulking savages might venture to a personal rencounter 
with the marred hero of many an open, honorable ccmbat. And 
if this thrilling scene shall be ever preserved in the breathing 
visions of the canvas, or in the thrilling cadence of martial song, 
it shall present a single figure, the brave young loyalist, exposed 
upon the sh(jre of the turbid stream, away in the swamps of the 
Peninsula, daring and defying the brutal demons of the jungle, 
with an air of moral sublimity that makes us forget, for the mo- 
ment, the perfidy and meanness which have furnished the occa- 
sion of its superb exhibition ! 

At length the friendly ferry-boat returned, and the Colonel 
joined his command once more in safety. They were soon how- 
ever upon a wooded road, thick w^ith rebel riflemen and liable to 
be shot down at any moment. Coming late in the day to the 
passage of a brick church, as if to render the sacrilege more com- 
plete, this now exhausted company of less than seventy men were 
heavily fired upon from the bushes in the vicinage of the temple 
of God ! Returning the fire and spurring onward with some loss 
of life, they rode out of present danger, but alas ! only for a little 
space. In the gathering darkness of that ever to be lamented 
night, they crossed a small bridge and halted by the road side, for 
a little food and rest to the wearied men and jaded horses. For, 
having been three days and nights almost in constant motion, 
they were now constrained to yield to the claims of nature already 
sorely overtaxed. In that brief pause, the gallant leader of this 
noble band laid down for relief on the rude couch, which his at- 
tendant had hastily extemporized, by drawing together a few rails 



39 

on the groimd and casting over tliem a soldier's blanket. Here he 
soon fell asleep, for body and mind both needed repose. Before the 
next morning light should break the mother Earth should receive 
his mortal part forever; yet this last sleep of weary natui'e was as plo,- 
cid, and almost as profound, as that which knows no waking until 
the Resurrection morn ! A short half hour speeds on and the young 
warrior wakes to action for the last time among men. The 
muffled note of preparation is all that greets the ear ; the men 
are again in saddle, ready to follow their fearless, almost un- 
tiring leader, now at his post in the front, where he never 
failed to be. The little band are riding in the deep solitude of 
the forest and under the gloom of the midnight. And now the 
heart almost ceases to beat, as we think of the profound and awful 
mystery of that last fatal movement. Is that dreary mile, through 
which a brave young chieftain is carefully threading his way, 
bringing on his followers with an earnest prayer for their safety — 
Oh, merciful God! is that the closing distance of his own 
earthly pilgrimage? Yes ! that is the terminus ; then and there 
must drop the severed web, the strange, almost dream-like, tragic 
end of a glorious life ! First, a low rustle on the wind, then the 
quick challenge, and in an instant the flash, the rattle of volley- 
ing guns that all too wo fully swept down the narrow pike, with 
the first bitter breath of wasting and desolation that broke the 
silence of the desert night. Among the bodies that rolled down 
together in the dust and darkness, were Ulric Dahlgren and his 
high-mettled horse, all pierced and shattered with the leaden hail 
that made them both one heap of swift mortality. And so, ex- 
piring from many bloody wounds, a spirit deathless in renown and 
of existence immortal, passed out from its fle3hly tabernacle, 
through those fatal rents, mounting on high and returning for- 
ever to the Grod who gave it ! 

The column, no longer in the darkness hearing the voice of 
their commander, many being already unhorsed and wounded, fell 



40 

back and waited only to find tlaemselves surrounded and captured, 
a few barely escaping to tell the sorrowful tale of this great disas- 
ter ! The warfare of the young hero was accomplished, and 
there might his form have reposed in safety — 

"Who leaving in battle no blot on liis name, 
Looked proudly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame ! " — 

had it not been for the foul miscreants, who make war alike 
upon the living and the dead ! After this atrocious murder, then 
the fiendish cruelty of the cowardly rufiians broke forth upon the 
lifeless body, in such base and merciless indignities as curdle the 
blood to think of. We shall not dwell upon the sickening details 
of horror ! 

And who were the men that conferred upon themselves this 
diabolical distinction and pre-eminence of depravity ? When 
the main body of the expedition under Kilpatrick passed through 
the counties of Henrico and New Kent, Generals Hampden and 
Bradley Johnson had fallen upon their rear at Atlee's and Tun- 
stall's Stations with something like a show of genuine courage. 
But it was reserved for Captain Magruder and Lieutenant Pollard, 
with some of the 5th and 9th Virginia cavalry, the same that 
were driven panic-stricken from the streets of Fredericksburg 
the year before, now largely increased by the Home Guard, 
under the command of the Rev. Captain Bagby — all like jackalls 
seeking by night the graves of the dead — to distinguish their 
military career, not by meeting the stern soldier in open day and 
face to face in honorable strife, but by secreting themselves in a 
road-side thicket, under cover of the night, and there awaiting the 
coming of the troops they durst not fight on equal and open 
terms ! This is the warfare of the assassin and the murderer — 
a warfare whose barbarism is equalled only by its meanness, and 
whose savage cruelties are sought to be concealed by its more 
audacious calumnies ! Wc are told that having been stripped and 



41 

mutilated, the body was thrown over iuto a field to prevent it from 
being torn in pieces by the swine-herd ; then, that it was hastily 
plunged into a pit dug for it at a cross-roads ; then, that it was 
disinterred and taken to Richmond, and after lying some time at 
the York river depot, in a pine bos covered with a confederate 
blanket, exposed to the gaze of a maudlin multitude, it was spir- 
ited away and hurried no one knows, or is to know where, save 
those who covered it ! Such are the issues of the heathen oracles 
of the Richmond press. Nor are the pretended pledges of the 
Richmond Junto, for the safe delivery of the remains of the mur- 
dered soldier, more adapted to inspire our confidence or regard. 
With the agonized father, four times descending the Potomac that 
he might gain the last poor privilege of giving to his gallant boy 
the fitting rites of sepulture, have they kept a worse than Punic 
faitli. This remorseless trifling with the holiest affections of hu- 
man nature, is the common feature of barbarous and semi-civilized 
communities. Yet they shall he taught, as they have been, that 
no craven prayer, wrung from a sorrowing family, shall repeatedly 
implore from those, whose hands are red with the blood of the 
slain, one sweet exercise of compassion. It is not in such ?. spirit 
that brave and loyal men shall meet the guilty and black-hearted 
enemies of their country. They will stand on the plain instincts 
of man's better nature, and when once deceived by the false and 
lying promises of perjured traitors, they will turn with scorn from 
the ineffable turpitude, and patiently await that hour of reparation 
which will sooner or later inevitably come ! 

The expedition ended as we have seen. But it was conceived 
and undertaken with a purpose as pure and lofty as ever inspired 
the heart of man to deeds of daring. In the comments of the 
rebel journals upon this bold attempt to storm their wretched 
Capital, we may perceive the reflection of the popular feeling and 
opinion. The brutality of the assassin is only equalled by the 
6 



42 



Bcurrility of tlie censor ; the shameful murder is well-nigh trans- 
cended by the unparalleled falsehoods by which they seek to 
blacken the fair fame of as noble a soldier, as sweet a gentleman 
as ever rode into battle. Having first, like thieves in the night, 
most foully dispatched him, and vented their brutal instincts upon 
his breathless corpse, they have sought to shield this more than 
savage outrage from the execration of mankind, by the still greater 
cruelty of stabbing his reputation and aspersing his fair name 
with the imputations of lies and fabrications the most atrocious 
and unreasonable that were ever brewed in a human brain, or pro- 
claimed by beings in the form of men ! 

With what unfeigned sorrow a loyal people^ from the eastern 
to the western seas, have read those announcements of the fate of 
one of the noblest characters that has adorned this or any other 
country, let the abundant and almost overwhelming outburst of 
grief and indignation, to this hour, and in all time as it will be, 
bear witness. No form of expression has been withheld, that 
could give utterance to the horror which men feel at the enormi- 
ties committed on the person of this brave sou of the Republic, or 
that could render more emphatic and universal the public sym- 
pathy for his friends in their affliction, and the undying admira- 
tion of his own great memory ! In the name then, of the country 
whose cause he served, and of the Christianity whose spirit he 
cherished, and of the history whose record he has rendered illus- 
trious, we undertake to deny, and we do deny, in part and in 
whole, every charge made upon Ulric Dahlgren, that can by 
possibility disparage him, either as a soldier or a man. It is 
morally incapable of belief that, in the expedition which cost 
him his life, he should have entertained any purpose but such as 
fully comports with the legitimate objects of civilized warfare and 
of an open, honorable and intrepid foeman. Endowed as he was 
by nature, trained as he had been by education, inspired as he 
undoubtedly seemed by grace, his whole being would have re- 



43 

voltcd at any act of uncocessary violence or severity. In tlie 
performance of his duty he would have smitten down, to the ex- 
tent of his power, whatever or whomever should have stood in a 
position of resistance ; but his duty once performed, the stern 
will, unbending in the struggle, would have relaxed into the gen- 
tleness and the generosity of his native kindness. Justice and 
not charity, constrains us to this conclusion. Providence, in one 
of its deepest mysteries, has strangely as to us it seems permitted 
him to fall at a time, in a place and under conditions which, 
now that he may no longer speak or act in vindication of him- 
self, give all the advantage of posthumous testimony into the 
hands of his calumniators. Having put away and withheld 
the proof of the mutilation of his person, they industriously 
frame, impute, publish and imprint a series of abominable misrep- 
resentations, which only men, frantic with affright and given over 
to judicial blindness and infatuation, could summon the hardi- 
hood to pretend. Now it is one of the prominent tokens of the 
•beneficent design of the creation, that falsehood and delusion 
shall never be consistent with, but evermore shall contradict 
themselves. The Richmond authors say, these papers were found 
on his person ; yet, not till after he was dead, does any one pretend 
that they were ever seen or heard of, or known to be in existence. 
Not till he has passed forever away from the theater of life's great 
action, and been given over into the hands of the unscrupulous 
and merciless representatives of the most diabolical and flagitious 
conspiracy the world has ever seen, is it found out that such docu- 
ments could be produced. While he was yet alive, neither friend 
nor foe ever suspected that any improper purpose was entertained 
by him. His whole military character and career belie it, and 
more especially his treatment of prisoners captured in this very 
expedition, themselves detailing in the ears of rebels his generous 
bearing toward them. Besides this, the internal evidence of these 
pretended papers, when judged in contrast with what he was 



44 



known to have composed and written, shows that the same mind 
could not have been the author of both. Yet what if it were all 
true, as is so loudly asserted ? With what face can men whose 
daily outrage on the world might put to shame a very demon's 
cheek, stand up and mock the time with this hypocrisy of holy 
horror ? 

Suppose the question to be judged in the light of the stand- 
ard of Southern ethics and of Southern chivalry ! what do 
we behold among the rebels of the Southern States ? What 
bloody story salutes our ears ? A people by nature, by custom 
and by social institutions, violent, bloodthirsty, ferocious, relentless 
in their hatred, and remorseless in their cruelty; a people whose 
meanness is only equalled by their subtlety, whose mendacity only 
matched by their barbarity ; a people whose prisons are filled with 
the groans and sighings of their own incarcerated populatidn, whose 
gibbets hang full of the victims of their terrible rancor, whose 
soldiers dig up the bones of their adversaries and cai-ve them into 
symbols of affection for lady-loves and friends at home, whose 
generals issue bulletins for the sack and pillage of a nation's Capital 
and for the murder or assassination of a nation's lawful rulers, 
and whose horde of outlawed bandits whenever successful in their 
assaults upon a weaker force, put them at once to an indiscriminate 
and unsparing slaughter, rendered more hideous by the aggravation 
and enormity of its execution; a people whose Capital city is be- 
come but another Sodom and another Aceldama on the face of the 
earth, where all sedition is promoted, all fraud and treachery de- 
vised, all despotism and oppression projected, and where the cries 
of the starving and lunatic captives of our own fellow countrymen 
have for the time succeeded to the shrieks of the bondmen and 
the clanking of chains long rusted by his tears — all going up 
into the ears of the Lord of Hosts, from that doomed and dismal 
spot — the most wicked, the most vivid exemplification of hell upon 
earth, that was ever known among nations pretending to the light 



45 

of a Christian civilization ; a people who propose to perpetuate 
these depraved dispositions, these terrific wrongs in their very 
organic and political existence — is it not well, is it not appropriate, 
is it not exceedingly befitting for the ministers and mouth-pieces 
of such a people to stand up before the open court of the whole 
civilized and Christian world, to read lessons of virtue and of 
humanity to mankind, and pretend to an astonishment they are 
incapable of knowing, or profess a sensibility they are utterly in- 
adequate to feel ! 

Yet again, let us consider what was the object, and what the 
inspiration of this expedition, that we may bear it forever in 
mind ? To answer this, it must be recalled, even though it 
be to our mortification and reproach, that for. three long years 
of bloody and desolating war, the rebel nest has been made — 
the rebel Capital has been fortified within the distance of one 
hundred miles from the very seat of the supreme national Gov- 
ernment ; that, between this point and that, vast armies have 
been swallowed up, until the whole ground would seem to have 
drunk of the bloodshed, and every acre to hold a soldier's grave ; 
that our Government, with all its burdens and with all its 
efforts, has been till now compelled to stand by and look help- 
lessly on this brazen defiance and bloody resistance, scarcely in 
appearance, nearer the reduction of Richmond to-day than when 
the war began. We must remember how often we have been 
disappointed and humiliated in our hopes, and how long our 
hearts have ached and our faces flushed with shame, as we heard 
the repeated tidings and saw the repeated proofs of the sufferings 
of our brave men in those dens of Southern insult and outrage, 
starvation, insanity and death ! We must remember how often 
we have prayed that God would bestow some means for their 
deliverance, would send some angel of mercy to open their 
prison doors and to set the captive free ! Could then, an aim 
like this, a motive so inspiring, though fraught with fearful 



46 



hazards, be regarded by sucli a miud as his, with apathy aud 
indifference ? Nay, but it was the bugle-note that rent from 
him the last restrictions of convalescing prudence, aud filled 
and fired his soul with one great sublimity of purpose. He 
thou<Tht of the pining prisoners, once his brave comrades. He 
thouo-ht " if we fail, we can die but once \ if we succeed, success 
will be glorious; — I go, and God be with us in the hour of 
need I" I suppose this only absorbed his soul; I suppose the 
rebel Davis, with all his official train, was scarcely once enter- 
tained in that magnificent mind, beside the images of the wan and 
wasted heroes he would liberate from their protracted misery, and 
restore with gladness to freedom, friends, and country ! 

Oh then, let the traitors rail on, and seek to fire the Southern 
heart a'^-ain by a legend of lying fiction connected with his name. 
Yea, lot them hide from ttfe eyes of men the resting-place of the 
noble dead ; but let us tell them, here and now, that by our faith 
in the justice and firm covenant of God, we hold the spot where 
he slumbers, if it be within the precincts of the rebel city, to be the 
most sacred its polluted site has ever owned ; and in the day of 
venfeance, when that impious town shall be plowed as a field, 
as surely it shall be, if yet there remains one single agency of 
Providence that ministers to the right — in that day of vengeance, 
the bones of this noble young martyr may be there, alone to plead 
for a clemency even toward the soil, which the wicked usurpers of 
its o-overnment have so proudly and heartlessly refused to others ! 
But let the loyalist who values probity and hates injustice, let 
him who can prize the motive of a brave, true spirit, yearning 
for noble deeds, and counting not even his own life dear, that he 
may bring to others a longed for deliverance — let all such remem- 
ber how the gallant soldier whose fate we here bewail, freely 
f ave up his life, that he might rescue others from a worse than 
sudden death. And let those especially for whom he suffered, 
though in vain, and all their host of friends do honor to his mem- 



47 

ory ! Let the nation clierish liim ; let his monument be reared, 
and his example proclaimed; for indeed, if God permit, it shall live 
in the air of the mountains, in the fragrance of our floral plains, 
in the murmurs of our waters, in the songs of the woodland, in the 
dirge of the ocean, yea in the light of every morning and the radi- 
ance of every sunset. It shall live more deeply and forever in the 
heart of the coming generations, in the heart of the great people 
— the thrilling, glorious memory of Ulric Dahlgren, a boy and yet 
a man, a child and yet a martyr, a ward and yet a hero, a patriot 
and a soldier, an example of singular purity, though of the fallen 
race ; teaching the value of obedience to law, teaching the beauty 
of filial piety, teaching the grandeur of a great inspiration, teach- 
ing the costliness of a great sacrifice, teaching the support of a 
religious faith, conscious of right, regardless of opposing num- 
bers ; giving a new sense of human valor, composing a purer ver- 
sion of lofty fealty to Government, living a century before his age 
— a trusty and brilliant type of the young manhood that Chris- 
tian civilization is producing and shall produce in America, when 
the flames of civil war shall have consumed the dross and refined 
the gold of the human generations that are gathered and growing 
here ! Oh thou brave, unselfish, sweet-tongued, lion-hearted, 
splendid, immortal spirit ! How dost thou rise before us to re- 
prove our baser passions, expose our apathy, and strip from us 
every sinister design ! How dost thou project, before all the mil- 
lions of America, thy radiant example of loyalty to country, and 
unwavering trust in God and in His Christ, the only Saviour of 
mankind. 

Surely we must feel and we do feel the superiority and exaltation 
of such a being. We shall cherish forever the memory of his 
life, and we shall pray that his mantle, like that of the olden 
prophet, may fall, but fall upon all the people of the land ; that 
his spirit may live in the young men and maidens, and that we 
may pay our tribute to his Father and ours, for such a vision of 



48 

human nature as his life has been, while with pious and rev- 
erential awe we gaze on the bright soul that, finding another 
Jordan in the solemn scene of his departure, ascends forever into 
Heaven in " the chariot of Israel and with the horsemen thereof!" 
Amen ! 



